Sequel: Beyond the Sun ›
The Bird and the Worm
fifty three - the closure
“He even brings the wife with him,” Jimmy said as he gave me a painfully tight hug. “How are ya, hot stuff?”
I glanced over at Brian, smiling a little. He smiled back, halfheartedly, and gave my hand a squeeze. When I looked back at Jimmy, he was snickering. “I’m just a little…” I searched for the right word that wouldn’t hint at our sex life in front of Michelle. “Yeah.”
Jimmy snickered. “Yeah. I feel no pity, grasshopper. You still have much to learn.” I rolled my eyes, and then Brian’s hand slipped from mine, his lips gently touching my temple before he went over to Michelle. I watched him with a slight pang of jealousy- he’d had something with her once, and I could tell in the way that she greeted him, totally pretending to be happy just to impress him. He hugged her, and he had an arm around her shoulders as they sat on the couch, talking through the problems.
Jimmy touched my back, snagging my attention. “Come on. You don’t want to watch this. Let’s go play Guitar Hero or something, alright?” I nodded. “You up for a little drum solo pwnage, or do you feel like guitar?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Alright, alright, drums it is. Come on. The cool TV’s upstairs.” His arm hooked casually around my shoulders, he led me up the stairs and towards his ‘man cave’, where I was greeted by a 70” screen that was mounted on the wall, PS3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo 64 all ready to be quickly connected. “If you help me set this shit up, you can pick the first three tracks.”
I smiled, and then I walked with him toward the TV, helping him bring everything out. I hoped he could distract me. I didn’t want to think about the things that Michelle was telling Brian.
((Brian’s POV))
I only barely noticed Heather going upstairs with Jimmy, but it didn’t bother me because I had a feeling that he was going to challenge her to a bunch of songs on Guitar Hero to distract her from what was going on down here. Michelle sat very awkwardly beside me, leaning just as awkwardly against my chest, sobbing pitifully and hoping I would feel ridiculously sorry for her at some point.
I didn’t, but I was still a little freaked out by what she’d tried to do.
“So you really wanna know what I was thinking, huh?” she sniffed, dragging her arm across her face in order to effectively wipe the tears from her eyes. She lifted her head, watching me, and when I nodded, she sniffled again. My arm slipped from her shoulders, and she blinked at me a couple of times. How pitiful I was, listening to my ex-fiancée complain about her life, afraid that she’d almost given it up only a few hours before.
“I was thinking about everything that’s happened since I…since I left.” She sighed. “After all that, I tried. I tried dating that guy that I’d thought would be worth leaving you for, but he didn’t work out, and then for almost two or three months I thought I was pregnant,” my heart thadunk’ed suspiciously in my chest, taken off guard by that confession, “and then I figured out that it was because of the medicine I was taking, and then anyone I tried dating, I kept comparing to you and how good you were to me and just…how perfect our relationship was before I fucked it up.”
“Michelle, I’ve-“
“I fucked it up, Brian. I fucked everything up. I fucked you up, I fucked myself up, and I fucked up any chances I had of getting you back because I called too much, and I know I pissed you and the rest of the guys off. I even fucked Val up, and she’s my twin.” She sighed, and I waited patiently, my hand rubbing her back. “And after I was done thinking about how I’d fucked it up, I thought about how picturesque your relationship with Heather is.”
She looked away from me for this one, glancing down and shifting away ever so slightly.
“It kills me to see you married, especially since I was a month away from being able to put something here.” She picked up my left hand with both of hers, touching my wedding band, and I reflexively pulled it away. “Yeah.” If her emotions hadn’t been so drastic, I could have imagined myself mentioning that I had done absolutely nothing to her to deserve the ring I’d spent a lot of money on being thrown at my chest, nor had I deserved my heart being broken. But, because she’d almost jumped off a fucking pier, I kept quiet. “And then I see my sister and Vengeance so happy, and the guilt sets in.”
“You thought you were pregnant?”
She nodded, swiping at a tear. “Yeah. I did.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Why would I have? You were fucked up as it was.” She bit her lip for a moment. “Val told me you didn’t speak to anyone but Matt and Jimmy for a month.” I blinked a couple of times. “Telling you that there was a possible chance of you and I having a kid would have been adding insult to injury.” Despite the consideration, for some reason, I still couldn’t pity her. “And besides. Until Val told me you and Heather were practically engaged, I was still in fucking love with you.”
“So why did you try to jump off a pier, Michelle?”
“I couldn’t handle the guilt anymore.” Her gaze met mine, and her eyes were weak. So weak that, despite my obvious dislike for her, it caught my attention. “I wanted that ‘I told you so’ voice to go away. For good.” She wrung her hands nervously in her lap, going through an entire cycle of emotions in just a few minutes. Jesus. I hadn’t imagined that she was like this. “I wanted to not love you and not be jealous of Vengeance and Matt and Val and Jimmy and I wanted that voice to go away.”
“Fuck, Michelle.” I sighed, running both of my hands through my hair. “You could have talked to one of us. Fuck…I don’t even love you anymore, and I got the shit scared out of me today when Jimmy called and said I needed to come over right away.”
“You don’t…”
“No. I don’t love you. I haven’t since you told me you cheated. But you fucking scared me today.” I held her chin in my hand, making her look at me. “If Jimmy hadn’t been there, you could’ve died. Guess how well that would have gone over with my conscience.” I hoped my eyes gave her an estimate of how shitty I’d feel, despite my lack of feelings for her.
She blinked, and I let go of her chin. She was just fucking confusing me.
“Jesus Christ, Michelle.” I got up from the couch, turning away from her and grasping my hair in my fists. “I can’t fucking do this anymore.” My heart was literally tearing in two different directions- one half was saying that maybe I shouldn’t feel so horribly towards her, that maybe there was a side to the story I didn’t know, but that was the half that Heather had perfected in the last seven and a half months. The woman was too nice to everyone.
The other half of me reminded me that I didn’t have to even see this woman anymore. That other half reminded me, quite avidly, that Michelle had cheated. She had thrown her engagement ring. She’d been the one that’d slammed the front door, leaving me, the man that had once wanted to marry her, hanging, once again.
I turned around abruptly about three minutes later. Upstairs, Jimmy and Heather were jamming. Down here, I had finally resolved to fix everything. I needed to know everything she could tell me, and I needed to have a feeling of fucking closure before I could move on in my marriage. I had to know that Michelle was not going to do this anymore. I didn’t want to be involved in her life anymore, and I didn’t want her to be involved in mine.
“Can you just…please explain to me why I wasn’t good enough?” She stared blankly at me, and I returned to the couch with a huff, determined, trying again. “I just…why did we even plan a wedding if you were going to walk out on me anyway?” God. What a great person I was. I knew I wasn’t helping. I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t trying to be a jackass, either, but I didn’t have to be clean and nice because Heather wasn’t around, and I didn’t have to make her think I didn’t have a million and one demons swirling around in my head.
“What do you want from me, Brian?”
I looked her straight in the eye. “I want to know why the fuck loving you wasn’t good enough.”
“Oh.” She sighed, looking away from me- something she was good at. “I’m a shit person, and I’m scared of forever.” That was a good start. She took a deep breath, we both settled into the couch a bit more, facing each other, and then she began again.
And then, for an hour, Michelle gave me my closure.
I glanced over at Brian, smiling a little. He smiled back, halfheartedly, and gave my hand a squeeze. When I looked back at Jimmy, he was snickering. “I’m just a little…” I searched for the right word that wouldn’t hint at our sex life in front of Michelle. “Yeah.”
Jimmy snickered. “Yeah. I feel no pity, grasshopper. You still have much to learn.” I rolled my eyes, and then Brian’s hand slipped from mine, his lips gently touching my temple before he went over to Michelle. I watched him with a slight pang of jealousy- he’d had something with her once, and I could tell in the way that she greeted him, totally pretending to be happy just to impress him. He hugged her, and he had an arm around her shoulders as they sat on the couch, talking through the problems.
Jimmy touched my back, snagging my attention. “Come on. You don’t want to watch this. Let’s go play Guitar Hero or something, alright?” I nodded. “You up for a little drum solo pwnage, or do you feel like guitar?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Alright, alright, drums it is. Come on. The cool TV’s upstairs.” His arm hooked casually around my shoulders, he led me up the stairs and towards his ‘man cave’, where I was greeted by a 70” screen that was mounted on the wall, PS3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo 64 all ready to be quickly connected. “If you help me set this shit up, you can pick the first three tracks.”
I smiled, and then I walked with him toward the TV, helping him bring everything out. I hoped he could distract me. I didn’t want to think about the things that Michelle was telling Brian.
((Brian’s POV))
I only barely noticed Heather going upstairs with Jimmy, but it didn’t bother me because I had a feeling that he was going to challenge her to a bunch of songs on Guitar Hero to distract her from what was going on down here. Michelle sat very awkwardly beside me, leaning just as awkwardly against my chest, sobbing pitifully and hoping I would feel ridiculously sorry for her at some point.
I didn’t, but I was still a little freaked out by what she’d tried to do.
“So you really wanna know what I was thinking, huh?” she sniffed, dragging her arm across her face in order to effectively wipe the tears from her eyes. She lifted her head, watching me, and when I nodded, she sniffled again. My arm slipped from her shoulders, and she blinked at me a couple of times. How pitiful I was, listening to my ex-fiancée complain about her life, afraid that she’d almost given it up only a few hours before.
“I was thinking about everything that’s happened since I…since I left.” She sighed. “After all that, I tried. I tried dating that guy that I’d thought would be worth leaving you for, but he didn’t work out, and then for almost two or three months I thought I was pregnant,” my heart thadunk’ed suspiciously in my chest, taken off guard by that confession, “and then I figured out that it was because of the medicine I was taking, and then anyone I tried dating, I kept comparing to you and how good you were to me and just…how perfect our relationship was before I fucked it up.”
“Michelle, I’ve-“
“I fucked it up, Brian. I fucked everything up. I fucked you up, I fucked myself up, and I fucked up any chances I had of getting you back because I called too much, and I know I pissed you and the rest of the guys off. I even fucked Val up, and she’s my twin.” She sighed, and I waited patiently, my hand rubbing her back. “And after I was done thinking about how I’d fucked it up, I thought about how picturesque your relationship with Heather is.”
She looked away from me for this one, glancing down and shifting away ever so slightly.
“It kills me to see you married, especially since I was a month away from being able to put something here.” She picked up my left hand with both of hers, touching my wedding band, and I reflexively pulled it away. “Yeah.” If her emotions hadn’t been so drastic, I could have imagined myself mentioning that I had done absolutely nothing to her to deserve the ring I’d spent a lot of money on being thrown at my chest, nor had I deserved my heart being broken. But, because she’d almost jumped off a fucking pier, I kept quiet. “And then I see my sister and Vengeance so happy, and the guilt sets in.”
“You thought you were pregnant?”
She nodded, swiping at a tear. “Yeah. I did.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Why would I have? You were fucked up as it was.” She bit her lip for a moment. “Val told me you didn’t speak to anyone but Matt and Jimmy for a month.” I blinked a couple of times. “Telling you that there was a possible chance of you and I having a kid would have been adding insult to injury.” Despite the consideration, for some reason, I still couldn’t pity her. “And besides. Until Val told me you and Heather were practically engaged, I was still in fucking love with you.”
“So why did you try to jump off a pier, Michelle?”
“I couldn’t handle the guilt anymore.” Her gaze met mine, and her eyes were weak. So weak that, despite my obvious dislike for her, it caught my attention. “I wanted that ‘I told you so’ voice to go away. For good.” She wrung her hands nervously in her lap, going through an entire cycle of emotions in just a few minutes. Jesus. I hadn’t imagined that she was like this. “I wanted to not love you and not be jealous of Vengeance and Matt and Val and Jimmy and I wanted that voice to go away.”
“Fuck, Michelle.” I sighed, running both of my hands through my hair. “You could have talked to one of us. Fuck…I don’t even love you anymore, and I got the shit scared out of me today when Jimmy called and said I needed to come over right away.”
“You don’t…”
“No. I don’t love you. I haven’t since you told me you cheated. But you fucking scared me today.” I held her chin in my hand, making her look at me. “If Jimmy hadn’t been there, you could’ve died. Guess how well that would have gone over with my conscience.” I hoped my eyes gave her an estimate of how shitty I’d feel, despite my lack of feelings for her.
She blinked, and I let go of her chin. She was just fucking confusing me.
“Jesus Christ, Michelle.” I got up from the couch, turning away from her and grasping my hair in my fists. “I can’t fucking do this anymore.” My heart was literally tearing in two different directions- one half was saying that maybe I shouldn’t feel so horribly towards her, that maybe there was a side to the story I didn’t know, but that was the half that Heather had perfected in the last seven and a half months. The woman was too nice to everyone.
The other half of me reminded me that I didn’t have to even see this woman anymore. That other half reminded me, quite avidly, that Michelle had cheated. She had thrown her engagement ring. She’d been the one that’d slammed the front door, leaving me, the man that had once wanted to marry her, hanging, once again.
I turned around abruptly about three minutes later. Upstairs, Jimmy and Heather were jamming. Down here, I had finally resolved to fix everything. I needed to know everything she could tell me, and I needed to have a feeling of fucking closure before I could move on in my marriage. I had to know that Michelle was not going to do this anymore. I didn’t want to be involved in her life anymore, and I didn’t want her to be involved in mine.
“Can you just…please explain to me why I wasn’t good enough?” She stared blankly at me, and I returned to the couch with a huff, determined, trying again. “I just…why did we even plan a wedding if you were going to walk out on me anyway?” God. What a great person I was. I knew I wasn’t helping. I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t trying to be a jackass, either, but I didn’t have to be clean and nice because Heather wasn’t around, and I didn’t have to make her think I didn’t have a million and one demons swirling around in my head.
“What do you want from me, Brian?”
I looked her straight in the eye. “I want to know why the fuck loving you wasn’t good enough.”
“Oh.” She sighed, looking away from me- something she was good at. “I’m a shit person, and I’m scared of forever.” That was a good start. She took a deep breath, we both settled into the couch a bit more, facing each other, and then she began again.
And then, for an hour, Michelle gave me my closure.